


Window to the Soul

by Tasceri



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Non-explicit teenage sex, Riku using Vanitas as a surrogate for Sora, Self-destructive pining, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27657056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tasceri/pseuds/Tasceri
Summary: He uses you, and you let him.
Relationships: Riku/Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Window to the Soul

The first time Riku sees you, he's angry. There's a flash of fear in his eyes when he first mumbles his best friend's name, but when it becomes abundantly clear that you're not _him_ he takes personal offence at your face, your voice and your stature, like they were things you stole, rather than cruel gifts bestowed upon you years before they would belong to anyone else. The second time he sees you he's suspicious, but you have no interest in fighting. He asks questions you don't feel like answering, the air of authority he feels like he's earned with that stupid Keyblade of his sickening, reminding you of another uptight bitch who thought she had all the answers. You doubt he would even believe you if you told him the truth, so you lie vaguely, thinking him little more than an annoyance at the fringes of your domain. The third time his long slender brows furrow and he says, "You look so much like him," and the melancholia in his voice is unmistakeable and for the first time you feel a little kinship with this Guardian of Light who only wants what he can't have. So the fourth time you lift the cadence of your voice just a little, adopting a sing-song chipperness that you know you've imitated perfectly when Riku's Keyblade comes within a hair's breadth of your chest and the fury in Riku's eyes is _so_ pretty, and the fifth time you tease him while he tries to work, offering no assistance whatsoever in his battle against the Heartless, play-acting flirtation that riles Riku up so much that the sixth time he kisses you, furious and desperate and aching with need.

And that first time it's funny. It's a reprieve from the monotony; it's a new sensation that makes a break from the usual negativity you're used to moulding into Unversed; it amuses you to see Riku so deliciously flustered. The second time it takes hardly any time at all for Riku to break, his hand wandering to your thigh as you kiss him, the murmur of someone else's name on his lips. When he pulls back and opens his eyes again there's a flush guilt on his face, and when you say in your natural tone, "It's not betrayal if he doesn't want you," Riku storms off, too angry to even defend himself. You'd be amused if you hadn't been hoping for more, so the third time you don't break character, letting Riku call you the name of the boy he loves and letting him slide that sickly suit away and letting him kiss your neck and your chest, touching you in a way you've never been touched before. After he's gone your skin feels ticklish remembering the way his fingers trailed over you and your chest is tight and strange and the Unversed tug at your consciousness like an itch. You let the unfamiliar pain be. You've got enough old wounds to pick at, there's no need to rip yourself any new ones. The fourth time Riku tips his head back and lets you undress him, and you stroke each scar and murmur "Oh, Riku, all this for me?" and Riku whimpers and cries and you remember a lifetime ago when you let every emotion show on your face and you pity Riku for being so weak, and you envy him. After the fifth time Riku looks at you and down at his unzipped pants and the mess you made so recklessly, and whispers "I can't do this any more." The sixth time he lets you in completely.

Not you. The person you're imitating. The person he _loves_ , and you're so glad you've never loved because you can see how much it hurts. Riku tells you, lulled into trust by the faux innocence you drench your voice in, about the bond he always felt so fiercely, about the reasons he spends so much time on solo missions because sometimes being close to _him_ is just too much to bear, about his deepest fear that this unrequited want will destroy the friendship he has, which should be enough. Should be enough.

You lean back against the headboard, stretching until your knees click, and say, "Can't relate." The Unversed swarm. Out of sight, out of mind. Should be enough. Should be enough to steal a little affection destined for someone else. After Riku leaves to shower you slip back into the Darkness, back into searching for your other half that doesn't fit against you the way you wish he did. It should be enough.

It should be enough, and you hate him, this wielder who claims control over the Darkness but refuses to be its denizen, this hypocrite who knows the ache for completion but uses you as a facsimile so easily, this beautiful breakable body that you can resist no more than he can resist _Sora_. You want to hurt him so badly, and it would be so easy when he closes his eyes and leans back so stupidly trusting; you could crush his throat in an instant and as the life chokes out of him you could snarl your true feelings, but then there would be no more gentle caresses, no more guttural moans, no more distraction. You keep coming back like a trained dog, impersonating the sickening adoration that Riku wants so much, letting yourself drown in reciprocity during the brief moments of orgasm, and as long as you keep pushing your feelings into Unversed Riku never has to know it means anything to you at all.

One night you find him in the wilds - you have become so attuned to the particular scent of him, the way his Darkness threads through the fabric of every world he visits - and when he hears your actor's voice there's something so soft and caring in the way he says Sora's name, in the hopeful uptick on the second syllable, in the bright anticipation in his eyes that you catch for just a moment before he realises it's actually you. "Not now," he says, turning back to the path, eyes on the horizon for any sign of monsters. You tease him a little longer, but you get nothing, not even irritation, so you drop the pleasantries and say in the detached tone that comes most easily to you, "Someone's in a bad mood."

Riku glances at you, expression cold, mistrustful. You feel a little nostalgic: they all used to look at you like that, even before they knew what you were. Then he asks, "What's your plan?"

"Plan?" you ask. "Why do I have to have a plan?"

"You're spreading Unversed through the worlds," says Riku, and it's a surprise he even knows that name. "I don't want to have to fight you." He almost sounds like he means that, which makes it worse. You feel a flash of annoyance at the air of moral superiority exuding from Riku like he's never got his hands dirty playing games with forces of Darkness he should know better than to touch.

"Can't bear to raise a blade against this face?" you mock, making sure he can see your caricature of a sweet smile. "You did it once before though, didn't you?" The expression on Riku's face before he manages to compose himself is priceless. So much violence simmering under his carefully composed facade; you're not the only one pretending to be someone you're not.

"You didn't answer my question," Riku says sternly, all business, all deflection. "Why are you creating Unversed?"

For a long time after you clashed with your other half you lay in the Darkness barely even aware that you had survived. Just a faint memory of being, little more than despair. What drew you back to your long-forgotten form, to your golden eyes and beating, bleeding heart? You look at Riku, cast in soft tones by the moonlight, tiredness creeping into his features. There's so much pain in this world, you think, that perhaps when it comes down to it the world _is_ pain. The pieces never slot together nice and neat. There are always jagged edges that cut deep and keep cutting, and there's nothing to do about it other than to push the pain away, into something else, onto someone else.

You could tell him the truth, but what purpose did the truth ever serve? You showed your true colours in the end, when you could no longer pretend that everything was just a game to you, in those last brutal hours when your life was on the line and Darkness you just wanted to end it but he kept resisting anyway. Darkness, you just want all this to be _over_ , but the universe still has its uses for you, and in the end it's always about what someone else wants.

So you just shrug. "Natural side effect."

"Of what?"

Perhaps there was a part of you that wanted to survive. That refused to believe your pathetic existence could amount to so little. You wonder if that had anything to do with bringing Riku back from the brink. But you know what it really was: in the end, Riku was saved by the people who loved him.

The Unversed twitch and waver, all pent up energy. Hurt. _Hurt_. And you are so angry, at Riku, at the man who made you and the child you used to be, at all the ways you're just a spent, broken part of something that was never whole. The anger rips out of you and if Riku dies he dies, but he fights like hell and when he destroys the monster he created the awful agony of truly _feeling_ crashes back into you, but of course he doesn't see that part, not out in the space between worlds where no-one can hear you scream.

The first time he finds you, you run. The second time you put up a fight, the Unversed coming so easily when all you have to do is look at his face and remember the tender way he kissed you while murmuring someone else's name. The third time he catches you off guard, the rain masking his approach, and you're so caught up in your own thoughts that you don't realise he's there until he says, "Yen Sid said the Unversed are formed from your emotions." You look at him, jacket glossy and hair plastered to his forehead, arm resting on one knee, face angled away. Guilty? Unlikely. You retort, "That geezer's still alive?" and Riku says without much conviction, "Show some respect," which makes you snort disbelievingly. Riku waits for you to say something, but you just close your eyes again and let the rain tickle your skin. Almost reminds you of human touch. You let the feelings form, distant, compartmentalised, manageable. Finally Riku asks, "What do you want?" You choke on laughter. What _you_ want has never mattered, not to the Master, not to the wretched students of Light, and especially not to Riku. But he looks at you with concern in those striking teal eyes like an ocean riptide and it makes you pause, because even if you were to tell him the truth you don't know what you'd say. In the end you deflect, playing the role they all expect of you: "I exist to cause problems." The fourth time Riku has his Keyblade out before he even spots you - that bullish metal shaft, all business and no personality, reflecting the model soldier he's become - and when you open with some teasing line he says, "I've been sent to eliminate you," and between blows you fix him with a cool stare and say cruelly, "Wouldn't that be nice?" and Riku snaps desperately, "If you just stop creating Unversed I could leave you in peace," but you have never known _peace_. You have never known peace, but the physical pain is at least a welcome distraction, so you let him think he's doing the world a service by breaking you apart when he should be smart enough to realise that every blow just makes you stronger.

Afterwards you lay in the Darkness fitting the pieces of yourself back together. Remembering the shape of your stolen body, the protective suit that sheaths it, the ache of old scars. You allow yourself the small comfort of your own hands, ticklish touches on your skin that soon turn to grasping, gouging rage. If only you could feel nothing. Nothing at all, just drifting like debris through the remains of what used to be a vast, vibrant universe before monsters like you chewed it up and spat it out, fragmented and broken and hurting.

The fifth time when you see him you summon Void Gear easy as breathing, cock your head and sing-song, "Back for more so soon?" But Riku just looks at you tiredly, bags under his eyes betraying restless nights: "I'm not here to fight." You give him a little runaround, but he dodges your attacks easily, not even summoning his Keyblade, and finally he catches your wrist and looks into your eyes and says, "This is because of me, isn't it?"

What do you feel? Putting words to the pain never felt productive, not when angular, armoured shapes made so much more sense. Embarrassment, perhaps. Shame. You're ashamed that you allowed yourself such a luxury as Riku's touch. Hadn't your Master taught you better than this, that small mercies only ever served as salt in the wounds of injustice? Riku must see the flash of weakness in your eyes, because his expression softens into something guilty; he loosens his grip and glances down at the space between you and whispers, "I'm sorry." You are still, betraying nothing, and Riku says: "I'm so sorry."

The Unversed pool at your feet. Slender velveteen forms, unprotected, all vulnerability, eyes all weeping curves and for the first time your voice catches as you whisper, "It should be enough." But it wasn't enough to pretend, not for Riku, not for you, and you let him hold you in a loose embrace until it becomes too much to bear. But maybe the sixth time he'll kiss you again, this time meaning it, and for a moment the ache of existence will melt away like darkness with the dawn Riku has always sought, and just maybe you'll glimpse a little of the light, too.


End file.
